40. It Happened One Night (1934)

It was a film made at a Poverty Row studio, in just four weeks and on a shoestring. Clark Gable was forced to star in it as a punishment, according to some accounts, and turned up drunk and angry to meet director Frank Capra. At the end of filming, Claudette Colbert said “I just finished the worst picture in the world.” Yet, somehow, It Happened One Night, the tale of a runaway heiress who joins forces with an unemployed journalist on a long-distance bus trip, ended up as a smash hit and multi-Oscar winner. It touched a nerve in the Great Depression – and still does so now, in our own hard times nearly 80 years on. I was lucky enough to see it on the big screen during a rerelease in the UK two years ago, and the audience’s reaction showed just how well this early screwball tale of a couple travelling on a late-night bus has worn.

The legend has it that Capra came across the original short story, Night Bus by Samuel Hopkins Adams, by chance in a copy of Cosmopolitan. He asked Columbia to buy it for him, which the studio managed to do cheaply, and he and writer Robert Riskin then set about turning it into a script. However, they quickly found that nobody had much faith in the project. Robert Montgomery was originally offered the part of the hero, down-at-heel, hard-drinking journalist Peter Warne, but turned it down because he felt there had already been ‘too many bus pictures’. Gable was loaned by MGM in his place, possibly as a punishment – he had recently been ill and taken time off, which didn’t go down well in that high-pressure era, as well as asking for more money. The role of the heroine, spoilt Ellen “Ellie” Andrews, was rejected by Miriam Hopkins, Myrna Loy and Margaret Sullavan in turn. Constance Bennett, Bette Davis and Carole Lombard were also suggested and then fell by the wayside for various reasons. Colbert only accepted the part at the last minute, in return for a bumper pay cheque and the promise of a quick shoot.

However, as with so many classic films where there were changes of casting, it is hard to imagine that anyone could have played the roles as well as the couple who were finally chosen. Colbert’s air of wistful elegance is perfect for bored rich girl Ellie, while Gable got the chance to be more boyish, comic and mischievous in It Happened One Night than he had done in any of his roles to date, showing a new side to his talents. In his autobiography, The Name Above the Title, Capra says he felt this was the only film where Gable got the chance to play himself – and he certainly gives the impression on screen that he is having a lot of fun. Riskin’s script is very sharp, but he is said to have left room for Capra to improvise, and the whole film does feel fresh, natural and not too heavily scripted.

This was a film released in the last days of the pre-Code period, before the powers-that-be cracked down on any suggestive scenes. It’s said that Gable and Colbert did not get on, and fell out continually on set, but on screen they have a great chemistry and easiness together, with plenty of sexy moments – above all, the scenes where they rent a room together but chastely divide it in two with a makeshift barrier which Gable nicknames ‘the walls of Jericho’. Gable set millions swooning (and supposedly damaged sales of undershirts and vests) in the scene where he takes off his shirt to get ready for bed. Colbert refused to strip on camera, but the sight of her underwear being draped over the barrier as she undressed out of sight was possibly even more suggestive than a strip scene, and later there is the famous hitch-hiking scene where she hitches up her skirt and shows a leg in order to stop a car. Colbert at first refused to do this scene, but then decided she didn’t want a body double brought in to show their legs, and would rather do it herself afer all. The supporting cast is also excellent, especially Roscoe Karns as lecherous fellow-passenger Oscar Shapeley, and Alan Hale as the annoying motorist who stops for Colbert.

In his early films, Capra constantly puts the focus on outsiders and people forced to pretend to be something they are not, such as the fake faith healer in The Miracle Woman and the street pedlar desperately imitating a society matron in Lady for a Day, the film he made just before It Happened One Night. The couple at the centre of It Happened are both outsiders, too, and both putting on a brave face. Peter might swagger around, as only Gable could swagger, but the fact is that he has been sacked from his job as a journalist while on assignment in Miami, is down to his last ten-dollar bill, and needs to make the long journey back to New York in search of work.

Ellie, too, is running away from a different kind of failure. The original short story made this young heiress merely spoilt, but a friend of Capra’s suggested she should instead be a character who is fed up with her life of privilege and trying to escape. This makes her far more sympathetic and interesting. Yes, she often shows her unthinking assumption of entitlement, for instance by airily assuming the bus will wait for her if she is late (it doesn’t), or trying to spend the little money she has left on a box of chocolates. But she is interested in the people around her and ready to learn, even if it means queuing outside for a shower in a hut and waiting her turn behind a group of poor women. She wears only two dresses in the whole film, including her wedding dress (but not including the dressing gown and pyjamas she borrows from Peter).

Indeed, the film is largely set in the world of people with no money, travelling long distances by bus, stopping for brief snatched meals they can hardly afford, and spending nights in shadowy transit camps of cheap cabins. It is more the world of a pre-Code drama, such as the gritty Warner melodramas of the period, than of a typical romantic comedy. Colbert worried this might lead the film to flop, commenting: “It was right in the middle of the Depression. People needed fantasy, they needed splendor and glamour, and Hollywood gave it to them. And here we were, looking a little seedy and riding on our bus.” (This comment is quoted in Clark Gable: A Biography by Warren G Harris.) But I think this grounding in reality is just what gives the film its spark, as this beautiful couple refuse to be beaten, and are willing to sleep in the hay, live on raw carrots or share one egg between them for a meagre breakfast. In one plot twist, they even pretend to be a typical married couple with little money, and have a fake screaming row. Embarrassed officials look away, assuming they must be genuine.

Food and money loom large all through the film, with one touching scene on the bus where a woman faints in her seat. Her teenage son confesses that they have eaten nothing since yesterday, after spending all their money on their tickets. Ellie gives them what turns out to be all the money Peter has, and he plays along, hollowly boasting “I’m a millionaire”. This scene is beautifully understated compared to some later heavy-handed scenes of hungry people in Capra films, like the weeping gunman who targets Gary Cooper in Mr Deeds Goes to Town. Here, the scene is passed over quickly – but it still makes its mark, and shows just what the reality is that our glamorous couple are passing through.

However, despite much of the movie being set in a bleak world not all that far removed from The Grapes of Wrath, it begins and ends with glimpses of wealth and glamour. At the start, heiress Ellie is seen pining away in the lap of luxury. The film opens with her on board a yacht, with her father, played by permanently worried comedy stalwart Walter Connolly, trying to bully her into eating a fancy meal. Ellie has gone on her own version of hunger strike because she wants to be allowed to go away and join her new husband, pilot ‘King’ Westley (Jameson Thomas). He’s a man she hardly knows, but who hastily wooed and married her in secret with an eye to her fortune, though it is made clear the marriage hasn’t been consummated. The memory of Ellie turning up her nose at fine food in this opening sequence becomes increasingly ironic in retrospect, as she goes hungry for much of the film after her money is stolen. But the opening does show that, even if she is spoilt, she is also being suffocated by her sheltered life – and, when her father slaps her on the face, in a shocking moment, it is easy to understand why she throws herself overboard and swims away from her rich life.

At the end of the film she runs away again, fleeing her own grand official wedding to Westley in order to go back to Peter. I find it slightly odd that we never see the couple reunited at the end of the film – but that scene of Colbert running away in her wedding dress is unforgettable, and was surely the inspiration for all the runaway brides who followed in later films. This was a hugely influential film in general, leaving its stamp on everything from Bugs Bunny (he allegedly copied Gable’s chomping of carrots while talking) to later reporter-and-heiress/princess romantic comedies like Roman Holiday. But, although its influence on later movies is fascinating, it is most of all worth watching for itself, and for the unforgettable combination of Colbert and Gable.

How It Happened One Night made the Top 100:

#11 Brandie Ashe

#12 Pierre De Plume

#13 Bobby Jopsson

#14 Dean Treadway

#31 Pat Perry

#33 Samuel Wilson

#33 Mark Smith

#33 R.D. Finch

#42 Dennis Polifroni

#52 Rod Heath

#56 Allan Fish

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26 Responses

Judy, what a beautifully written post with so much fine information and so many perceptive observations on a film about which so much has been written. I especially like the paragraph where you discuss Claudette Colbert’s character (the one that begins ‘Ellie, too, is running away”). Though brief, it covers the finer points of her character in a way most things I’ve read don’t. I also thought your treatment of the social and economic problems of the time was especially strong. It’s a subject often raised in discussions of the film but seldom related to the film in the detailed way you did. I’m wild about Colbert, one of my very favorite actresses of the studio era. I’ve never been overly fond of Gable, though, but he’s terrific here. I think you identified one of the reasons I like him so much in this film, which is that while seeming completely natural, he’s allowed to show his “boyish, comic and mischievous” side. For once the charm seems genuine, and he seems genuinely masculine rather than blusteringly macho. A lovely post on one of the cornerstones of American film comedy.

Thank you very much, R.D., much appreciated. I also love Colbert although I still need to track down more of her films – she has been great in all those I have seen so far, with ‘Midnight’ and ‘Arise, My Love’ being favourites. It sounds as if I like Gable more than you do, but, again, I need to see more of his work. He also has that mischievous quality in Wellman’s ‘The Call of the Wild’, made the following year, but I know there were many films where he was “blusteringly macho”, as you say.

I agree that the film’s magic lies in the way it fuses Depression realities with a kind of American fairy-tale sensibility. This was what Hollywood did at its best: not escape reality entirely, nor dutifully reflect it, but mythologize the outside world so that it was still recognizable, yet simultaneously something else.

Very fine and thorough review Judy. I’m not sure exactly why I didn’t vote for this film. It’s funny, charming, and has two great performances…..however maybe I just didn’t think it stacked up quite as well as a comedy. I think it’s a better film than it is a comedy….meaning it plays better as it is than as ranking it as comedy. Kind of hard to explain I guess.

Jon, I didn’t vote, so didn’t have the agonising over what to choose, but i think I often tend to prefer comedies which blend in aspects of drama as well. Glad you like the film anyway and thanks so much!

Judy –
Wonderful post! It really is one of the best romantic comedies of its era, and yet significantly, as you expertly desribe, it is very much of its time and displays an admirable social conciousness, but wtih an exceedingly light, not cloying, touch. Your comparison to the Warner’s pre-code dramas is apt; I think it’s also comparable to Warners’ pre-code musicals in that regard. Last year, while prepping for the Musical Countdown, I couldn’t help but notice how the Warner Brothers musicals stood out from others musicals of their time in the ways they directly incorporated the Depression into their plotlines. Yet they were always witty and fun – and so, too, is IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT.

Pat, yes, I agree it has similarities with the Warner’s musicals in the way its comedy and romance are worked together with social consciousness. I do think there are elements of the Depression in other musicals, too, like Fred and Ginger singing ‘Pick Yourself Up and Start All Over Again’, but it seems as if those themes are more central in the Warner films, as you say. And I do agree they are witty and fun. Thanks very much for the nice comment!

Food and money loom large all through the film, with one touching scene on the bus where a woman faints in her seat

Fantastic point Judy! And a very persuasive comparison with THE GRAPES OF WRATH as well. This is one of the classic romantic comedies, and one that has entered the history books in the Oscar annals, with an achievement matched four decades later with ONE FLEW OVER THE CUKOO’S NEST. I’m not sure why I didn’t include it on my own ballot, as it does make for a perfect fit for this countdown, and it’s exceedingly popular with classic comedy fans, as well as it should be. As you note, Gable and Colbert have incomparable chemistry, and were honored for their efforts. Capra was to go on and make some of the greatest American films after this (MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON, MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN, LOST HORIZON, YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU and IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE) but he set teh bar high here, in establishing his unique style that became so identifiable with film fans.

Sam, amazing that there was such a long wait before another film took all the main Oscar prizes. I think the problem for those of you who voted was that you just couldn’t fit everything in, as Frank says below! I’ve been becoming increasingly interested in Capra’s early films, but must agree that he had a great streak after this with so many classics – ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ is my favourite. Thanks very much for your encouragement and all your work on this countdown, Sam.

I should have included this one too. But it’s so tough to have everything in a list of 60. The light, breezy style, tempered by depression era realities have always enhaced the realism, and the acting is first-rate. Thanks Judy, for a terrific essay, packed with so much information.

Excellent post Judy on a witty and charming romantic wonderful . Colbert is great and Gable, an actor I am not always keen on, handles himself admirably. I only wish Hollywood could still make romantic comedies with this much class.

Judy, thanks for a great summation with a lot of details I hadn’t read before. I’ve never regarded this film as part of pre-code Hollywood because the suggestiveness was delineated by the “Wall of Jericho.” However, one of the more intimate scenes — the night Colbert and Gable spent sleeping outdoors — did have some of the most intimate and moving moments in the entire film.

I can never get enough of this film. As you suggested, it has a special quality, a unique blend of fantasy and reality. As we’ve seen in other films, some of the most surprisingly good stuff we’ve seen was done in a sort of throwaway manner — Elizabeth Taylor in Butterfield 8 comes to.

The film’s themes involving wealth and poverty still ring true today, and I think this is a big reason for its initial and continuing success as a classic. Both leads are terrific (I love Colbert’s elegance), but Gable in particular, as you suggest, was able to show more natural character than in his other films.

I should probably add an anecdote I’ve read — some here may have seen it already — the night of the 1935 Academy Awards ceremony, Colbert was on her way out of town when she learned she was about to win the Oscar. Apparently it took some doing to convince her to attend, as she showed up in her traveling clothes — a decidedly unglamorous business suit.

Pierre, thank you! It has always seemed like a pre-Code to me because of the amount of sexual tension between the couple, and the fact that Colbert is able to get her first marriage annulled, though I do take your point about the walls of Jericho and the fact that they wait to get married before tearing it down. I do agree that the scene outside is very effective and intimate. I’m a fan of ‘Midnight’ too and, as well as loving Colbert’s performance, I especially like John Barrymore’s scenes in it – one of his last good parts. That’s a great anecdote about the Oscars – I’ve also read that Colbert said thank you, got off the stage, then went back in order to thank Capra.

It Happened One Night is one of those films that was made the same year the production code (established in 1930) began to be enforced, so it’s not surprising it contains elements of both pre- and post-code influences.

It’s a bit surprising that Colbert was shy about showing her legs, however. She was attired pretty scantily in Cleopatra (the same year) and bared most of her breasts in de Mille’s Sign of the Cross (1932). Maybe by the time It Happened One Night rolled around, she felt she could be more assertive about nudity. Just for reference, here’s her milk bath clip from Sign of the Cross: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1057728/claudette_colbert_sexy_in_a_bath_super_hot/

Thanks for the link to that clip from ‘Sign of the Cross’, Pierre – I definitely see what you mean about the contrast with her being reluctant to show her legs in ‘It Happened One Night’. But I would think you are right that she was able to be more assertive by that time, when she had become a known name.

It’s a most enjoyable film, and so is your blog, Judy. You evoke the edgy energy giving this comedy extra mileage, and very aptly spotlight the great work by Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable.
I was particularly struck by your account of her reluctance to take on this assignment and how troubled she was playing that risque role. Her performance is so convincingly full of delight in being an outsider.

Jim, I was also quite surprised to realise that Colbert had been reluctant to take the part in the first place and then to show her legs – as you say, her performance doesn’t betray this at all and seems to be full of enjoyment. Thank you!

SAM has lost power and internet capabilities in his home and work place and he wanted me to chime in and inform all you good people, that frequent WITD, that he is fine, everyone is safe and that the haul to get everything up and running in his area is underway. Unfortunately, the damage and the scope of the devastation in our area is of a titanic proportion and may take a day or two be rectified and put back on it’s regular course.

I have informed Sam of some possible outlets in the area that still may be offering internet service (internet “cafes”) and he’s on the job of trying to locate one of these outlets so he can get back to you all in a timely manner.

On a personal level, Sam is fine. His house and family have weathered the worst of the storm with little or no muss to the head. Basically, it all comes down to waiting for the emergency teams to start checking off each area as they go and restore power. The reaction of the emergency power and water units in the areas effected have been astonishing and they are doing the very best under the difficult circumstances.

I am writing this for Sam as my home is one of the few in the area situated in a “cove” (meaning large hills on both sides of my building) and, time and again, sees to be impervious to the hard winds and water fall of massive storms like this. Both Sam and I want to thank you all in advance for your concern and well wishes in this time of crisis. You guys and girls are the best!!!!!!

Judy, you do the film justice situating it on the border of Pre-Code and screwball with its riches-to (temporary) rags storyline. The cast is great down the line, including Ward Bond despite his having practically nothing to say but, “Oh, yeah?” Arsenic and Old Lace is the funniest movie Capra directed, but it might be fair to say that It Happened One Night is the funniest Capra movie in his own auteurist sense.

Samuel, I like the way you sum the film’s world up in a line there, and ‘oh yeah’, that’s a great scene with Ward Bond, I agree! An intriguing distinction you make there over Capra’s comedies – I’ve just recently seen ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ and didn’t really like it, though I know I’m in a minority on thatr. For me, ‘It Happened One Night’ is much funnier. Thanks for the stimulating comment.

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